Firefox To The Rescue
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I recently purchased a new laptop for work. Of course, I've spent a good portion of time cursing Vista (we won't go into that now) and loading software onto the box.
One of the pieces of software that I needed to load was Microsoft's .NET 2.0 Software Development Kit -- 354 megabytes of software development kit! But I have a fast Internet connection, so I downloaded the file and ran the setup.
No go. While extracting the bundled files, the setup process bombed out, saying one of the CAB files was corrupt. Hmmm...maybe the file was corrupted in transit. So, I download the file...again.
Once again, I run the setup. Again, the process bombs out with the same error message.
On a lark, I fire up Firefox -- a very good free browser -- and download the file...again. Once again, I run the setup. Lo and behold, the files extract and install successfully!
How ironic is it that Microsoft's SDK for a core component of their operating system is corrupt when downloaded from their site using their browser, but works when downloaded with an alternative browser.
Get Your Gunn
The year was 1976. While the nation was gearing for a bicentennial celebration, a young obstetrics and gynecology resident at Vanderbilt University successfully performed the first Zavanelli maneuver -- a last resort treatment used when an infant's shoulders become stuck during delivery. When a baby's shoulders became stuck after its head had emerged, David Gunn, the young resident, gently pushed the baby back into the mother's vagina and then immediately delivered the baby via Caesarean section. The procedure is more appropriately known as the Gunn Zavanelli-O'Leary maneuver, named after the doctors who developed and performed it.
After graduating from Vanderbilt University and the University of Kentucky Medical School, the Dr. Gunn went to work as an ob/gyn at a public hospital in Brewton, AL. The idealistic Gunn elected to live in a poor, rural community where no other OB/GYN was practicing because, according to The New York Times, it had the highest infant-mortality rate in the United States. A statistic he hoped to change. Although he was initially a specialist in infertility, when a local clinic asked for his help because it couldn't find a doctor who would perform abortions, Gunn agreed.
His empathy for the young mothers and because virtually no other doctors were willing the help them, led Gunn to eventually focus his medical practice solely on abortions. He traveled across Alabama, Georgia, and Florida -- often 1000 miles per week -- providing an unpopular service in communities that lacked reliable abortion providers. He practiced medicine across the Southeast, seeing patients in Mobile, Fort Walton, Columbus, Pensacola, Montgomery, Birmingham, Tallahassee, Savannah, and Orlando.
Pensacola was called "the Selma of the abortion rights movement", notable for its pro-life violence. In the spring of 1984, an abortion clinic was bombed and then, six months later, was bombed again on Christmas Day. The offices of two Pensacola doctors were also bombed that same Christmas. The bomber called it "a gift to Jesus on his birthday".
John Burt -- a former KKK member and founder of Our Father's House, a shelter for unwed mothers -- was the local pro-life extremist leader in Pensacola. In 1986, John Burt invaded the Ladies Center, slamming the clinic's director, Linda Taggart, against a wall before trashing the clinic with three accomplices. In 1988, Burt and John Brockhoeft, a man convicted of arson against a clinic in Columbus, OH, were apprehended with a trunkful of pipe bomb materials after parking in a lot across the street from the Ladies Center. Burt served jail time for these incidents. He also demonstrated in support of two young couples who bombed three clinics.
Fast forward to March 10, 1993. John Burt is leading a right-to-life demonstration, sponsored by Rescue America, in front of the Pensacola Women's Medical Service Clinic. Inflamed by Burt's rhetoric, Michael F. Griffin lurked near the back door of the clinic. As Dr. Gunn entered the clinic via this door, Michael Griffin rushed up behind Dr. Gunn and shot him three times in the back. Gunn died two hours later during emergency surgery. Griffin immediately surrendered to police.
Within an hour of the killing, Rescue America, a Houston-based group for which Mr. Burt served as the Florida leader, issued a statement requesting that donations for Mr. Griffin's family be sent to Our Father's House, another of Mr. Burt's organizations. Don Treshman, the group's national director, said:
We don't condone killing an abortionist, but we don't condemn it either.
Matt Trewhella, a pro-life extremist involved with the group Missionaries to the Unborn, said he:
would not condemn someone who killed Hitler's doctors ... and neither will I condemn Michael Griffin.
The NY Times had a different perspective in their editorial.
This murder was the latest escalation in a crescendo of violence by anti-abortion activists. In the name of "life," the anti-abortion army has bombed or set fire to more than 100 clinics over the past 15 years, invaded more than 300 and vandalized more than 400. Last month in Corpus Christi, Tex., its arsonists leveled a clinic and three nearby buildings. It has stalked medical personnel, used their photographs on "Wanted for Murder" posters, forced physicians to wear bulletproof vests and work behind steel shutters. It has also driven many doctors out of their abortion practice.
Gunn was a recognizable figure partly because Operation Rescue, another anti-abortion extremist group, had put his face and phone number on a "Wanted" poster and displayed it at a rally in Alabama.
John Burt became a central figure in Michael Griffin's trial. In fact, Griffin's defense was that Burt brainwashed him with videos, books, prayer sessions, use of an effigy of Dr. Gunn, and even a funeral for a pair of aborted fetuses. Burt's response?
I've shown those videos and literature to thousands of people who never killed anyone. I would respect Michael a lot more if he had stuck with his original defense, which was that he acted for God when he shot Dr. Gunn.
Paul Hill would often participate in protests with John Burt. Hill went on the Phil Donahue Show and called Dr. Gunn's murder a "justifiable homicide". A little over a year after Dr. Gunn's murder, Hill got into the act himself, killing Dr. John Britton (who took over as clinic doctor after Gunn's death) and James Barrett in Pensacola in July 1994. Hill was sentenced to death but never expressed remorse for his crime.
In June 2003, Burt's faithful were left in disbelief, when the 65-year-old was charged with molesting a 15-year-old resident of Our Father's House, the shelter he ran for unwed mothers. A month later, Burt pleaded not guilty to five counts of criminal conduct: four lewd or lascivious molestation counts, and another for slipping the 15-year-old a handwritten invitation to have sex with him. Local authorities said that after Burt's arrest, other residents of Our Father's House -- a Christian-based boarding school for pregnant teens -- came forward with similar stories of sexual abuse.
In May 2004, Burt was sentenced to 18 years in prison. In January of this year, Burt lost his final appeal in the Florida 1st District Court of Appeal.
Hallelujah.
BTW, Get Your Gunn was the first official single from Marilyn Manson. The song was inspired by the killing of Dr. Gunn, which the band called "the ultimate hypocrisy".
Juxtaposition
This article is probably the only place you will ever see these two men together. Both of these men played large and very different parts shaping historical currents that eventually culminated in the American Civil War.
On the left is John C. Calhoun, senator from South Carolina and Vice President for both John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson. He was one of the most powerful politicians in the country until his death in 1850. He was a staunch believer in States Rights and in the "positive good" of the institution of slavery. He was, in a sense, the patron saint of the South's secessionist movement.
On the right is John Brown the abolitionist, famous for his roles in the Pottawatomie Massacre in Bleeding Kansas, and the leader of a slave revolt at the Harper's Ferry Armory for which he was hanged. He is hailed by some as a martyr, while others view him as a terrorist.
Isn't it ironic that they look so similar? , Especially the set of their jaw and the zeal in their eyes.
Of Hearts and Penicillin
As I'm often wont to do, I checked out This Day in History on the History Channel web site. 
Besides being the day associated with romance, today is also the day that penicillin was discovered by Sir Alexander Fleming.
Coincidence? Hmmm. How much penicillin has been consumed as a result of "love"?
Interestingly, the History Channel lists today as the day of discovery of penicillin, yet Wikipedia lists September 28, 1928 as the date of discovery.
There’s U308 In Them Thar Hills
Uranium ore, that is.
On August 29, 1949, the Soviet Union exploded their first atomic bomb. Needless to say, this created quite a stir in the U.S. which launched a massive bomb building campaign to counter the Soviet threat. American policymakers strategically decided the develop native sources of uranium ore (aka U308) so as not to be dependent on foreign sources. The newly created Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) was designated as the only legal buyer of the ore. For several years, the AEC had already been paying top dollar for the ore, touting it as the energy source of the future. AEC chairman, David Lilienthal, crossed the country telling audiences that a uranium pellet the size of a peanut contained the energy of a ton of coal; holding up a lump of coal, he would tell his audience the equivalent size rock of uranium would heat a large city for an entire winter. With the combination of a successful Soviet atomic bomb test, the Korean War, and the beginnings of the domino theory of the fight against communism, the pressure was on the AEC to develop enough weapons-grade uranium to reduce the USSR to pea-gravel several times over.
In March 1951, the AEC doubled the price it was paying for uranium ore and offered a $10,000 bonus to anyone who developed a productive new mine. The AEC also provided guidebooks and geology reports, built supply roads, and constructed ore processing mills -- all in support of uranium miners. A uranium rush occurred in Utah. Moab, Utah went from 500 to 5,000 people virtually overnight. There were stories of prospectors renting planes and throwing out claim stakes in an massive mineral rights grab. Not coincidentally, Moab was the first place in Utah to allow alcohol.
Into this rush came Charlie Steen, an unemployed geologist from Texas, hitchhiking into Utah in 1952. Until this time, most uranium was either found on the surface or in excavated mines. Steen believed the ore could be found using drilling derricks to bore vertically to the ore. Legend has it that, in July 1952, he was down to his last dollar, wearing boots so worn his toes stuck out through holes, when his drill bit broke off in his bore hole. In disgust, he collected his samples from that day and drove home. On the way, he stopped at a service station where a friend had a Geiger counter. Apparently, everyone in Moab had a Geiger counter in those days. When he put the counter on his samples, the needle pegged all the way over. Steen had found a huge vein of uranium ore. His mine eventually produced over $100 million of ore. Steen had his worn-out boots bronzed.
The AEC continued its favorable pricing policies until 1966. By the early 70's the price of uranium ore had bottomed out. Then came the oil embargo of the 70's, and ore prices again skyrocketed as America was again electrified about nuclear power as the solution to America's energy needs. The partial meltdown at Three Mile Island -- less than 2 weeks after the opening of the movie The China Syndrome -- violently swung the public opinion pendulum against nuclear power. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) halted the construction of any new nuclear power plants. In 1986, the Chernobyl reactor explosion occurred, releasing 400 times the radiation as the Hiroshima bomb, further contaminating the reputation of nuclear power.
In the late 80's the fall of the Soviet Union, was another shock to the price of uranium ore. Ironically, much of the former Soviet Union's nuclear arsenal was recycled into fuel for nuclear power plants in the U.S. In fact, 20,000 Russian warheads have been dismantled and recycled into fully half of the uranium used for power generation in U.S. reactors. By the year 2000, uranium ore was selling for roughly the same price as it was 50 years before. In summer 2000, Invention and Technology magazine published an article detailing the history of uranium mining and its demise, saying that "uranium mining will not be a profitable venture any time soon." The market was dead and its prospects for a recovery were very dim indeed.
Now, however, the U.S. government is on the verge of granting permits for the first new nuclear power plants in 30 years. The soaring price of petroleum in recent years has again highlighted the folly of U.S. dependence on foreign energy sources. Growing concerns over global warming and greenhouse gas emissions are fueling the demand for forms of energy other than coal and oil. Even hard-core anti-nukes are warming to the idea of nuclear power; Patrick Moore, one of the founders of Greenpeace, said in an op-ed piece in The Washington Post, that nuclear energy is "the only large-scale, cost-effective energy source that can reduce greenhouse emissions while continuing to satisfy a growing demand for power."
And the U.S. isn't the only country with a re-energized nuclear power industry; Russia has unveiled plans to build 24 new nuclear reactors, and China has scheduled building more than 30 reactors (two 1,000-megawatt plants every year for the next 20 years). India is also going nuclear at a rapid pace. Worldwide, there are 160 power plants proposed or currently under construction.
Today, demand for uranium is outstripping the supply and the price for uranium ore has not just risen, it has absolutely skyrocketed. There's an ore rush occurring in Moab, Utah again -- almost 60 years after the first rush. And recently, a landowner in Virginia is trying to mine the largest deposit of uranium in the U.S.. A supply that is worth an estimated $10 billion and is the estimated energy equivalent of 7.4 billion barrels of oil. In the 80's, Virginia banned uranium mining but, of course, uranium ore wasn't extremely lucrative then -- and money talks.
Personally, I favor nuclear power despite its dangers and by-products; both of which I believe are far less than all other ready-for-primetime energy sources. But as a history addict, I find it interesting to compare the previous uranium rushes to the current one. The first rush in the 50's was fueled by fears of national security from a military perspective. 
The second rush of the 70's was generated by national security concerns over the U.S. over-reliance on foreign oil. Today's rush is plugged into America's growing concerns over rising petroleum prices, our voracious appetite for energy, our continued over-reliance on energy imports, and recognition of the need for clean yet economical energy sources -- in other words, economic national security tempered with a bit of environmentalism.
It's deja vu all over again. --Yogi Berra
Satire Defined
The Onion does it again. One of the funniest pieces of satire that I've read in quite a while.
Another Sign of the Apocalypse
My partner and I drove by a Sharper Image store today and, being the gadget geek that he is, he just had to stop and browse. As he remarked, Sharper Image is a chain built completely on products you will never need. Items such as the "rainproof" electronic meat fork with built-in thermometer. Or the lighted pepper grinder. And, not too far from the atomic clock that was 1.5 hours behind the correct time, was a true sign of the apocalypse. Of what possible use is a ropeless jump rope? If there's no rope, then it's not really a jump rope is it?
I guess this gimmick is for people who can't count jumping jacks.
Nuclear Peace
I'm an avid watcher of the History Channel. On a recent show about the Manhattan Project, the claim was made that the
world's death rate from war dropped dramatically with the creation of nuclear weapons. Before then, the rate had been on a continuous (and even exponential in the 20th century) rise throughout history. But that with the advent of nuclear weapons the war death rate dropped dramatically and has stayed at a (relatively) low level ever since. The unstated conclusion being that the threat of nuclear weapons has imposed some type of restraint on humankind's propensity for war making.
How interesting! As someone who grew up during the nuclear age with the Cold War doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction preventing the US and Russia from engaging in major military conflict, I had never thought of the Bomb as a lifesaving device. Nuclear arsenals as a boon to mankind. What a concept! Our doom as our salvation.
Legend has it that J. Robert Oppenheimer, director of the Manhattan Project, guessed this effect and named the first atomic test Trinity after being moved by the poetry of John Donne.
If you're interested, a quick trip to Google revealed this paper by Alex Roland, a professor at Duke University, in which he discusses the relationship between technology and war. His paper provides some of the statistics supporting the death rate argument.
Time Waits for No Man
I entered the world on this date 45 years ago, and so I've been thinking a good bit about the nature of time lately. Time is an absolute tyrant in my life and it's my most limited resource. I can always make more money, but I can't make more time. That's why your time is the most important gift you can ever give and why needlessly consuming someone's time is the greatest theft. I jealously guard my time because as my life has matured, my responsibilities and time commitments have naturally grown correspondingly. So, I'm busier than ever yet I have less and less time. The faster I go, the faster time passes.
Albert Einstein thought a lot about time and stunned the world with his Special Theory of Relativity in 1905. The first postulate of his theory states that the speed of light is the same for all observers, regardless of their motion relative to the source of the light. The second postulate is that all observers moving at constant speed (not under acceleration) should observe the same physical laws. Apparently, Einstein was also a great inspiration to rock-and-roller Gene Simmons.
Imagine a spaceship traveling at half the speed of light. If the spaceship turns on its headlights, an observer on the spaceship will measure the speed of that light at 186,000 miles/second. Paradoxically, an observer on Earth will also measure the speed of the spaceship's light at 186,000 miles/second. Since velocity is expressed as distance divided by time (v=d/t), it stands to reason that if the velocity of light is the same for both observers then time and/or distance must vary. This is indeed the case; experiments have proven that both time and distance vary with speed. In fact, the faster you go, the slower time passes.
Ironic, isn't it?
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